Research Data Steward

You will have an MSc in a quantitative science discipline or equivalent professional experience, along with proven experience in data collection, research data and metadata management from a longitudinal study, preferably of social science or health data.

You must have experience in questionnaire design, managing data collection tools such as paper questionnaires and computer assisted interviews and be able to use statistical software such as SPSS and STATA to perform quality control checks and clean newly collected data.

You will have experience of managing and documenting research data and metadata, supporting data sharing and data discoverability activities, preparing and publishing metadata to external data discovery platforms and maintaining the study's presence across key research infrastructure services.

The suitable applicant will have an interest in data management which includes automating, streamlining and improving data pipelines using Python or any other programming language, designing and managing relational databases and be able to use WordPress to manage, update the content on the website.

You will also have interest in FAIR principles and metadata management which will include generating metadata for newly collected data according to both in-house and external database schemas and standardising legacy metadata for key longitudinal variables.

Experience using version control tools such as Git and working with large or complex research data holdings would be advantageous.

This new post represents an exciting opportunity to join the existing data management team to take forward management of the research data for the oldest and longest running British birth cohort study, The MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD). The NSHD (https://nshd.mrc.ac.uk/) has informed UK health care, education and social policy for more than 70 years by following individuals throughout their lives. These involve multiple surveys, together with other specialised forms of data collection (for example physical measurements, biological samples and imaging), and linkages to health and administrative records.

The mission of LHA is to identify biological and social factors that affect lifelong health, ageing and the development of chronic disease, and to use findings to design and test interventions that enhance healthy ageing.

This role provides an excellent opportunity for an individual interested in the effective management and sharing of survey and biomedical research data. With a good understanding of, and the skills required for, the preparation of complex longitudinal data for research purposes, you will optimise data pipelines and integration in the research relational database, and will process, de-identify, curate and document the research data collected by LHA, planning this work in consultation with the LHA Director and ensure that the work progresses to schedule.

This post is available for 2 years in the first instance.